The allergy study at KGH’s Environmental Exposure Unit rocked me. 14 hours of peak-level pollen exposure caused red eyes, a stuffed and runny nose that hurt to touch due to the amount of Kleenex exposure (3 boxes!), and sneezes that paralyzed my entire body for a short, but uncomfortable, period of time. It wasn’t until I returned home that I had some relief, in the form of clean clothes, a shower, and some Reactin. Even the unlimited supply of chocolate milk (which I did take advantage of) didn’t make things enjoyable.
Will I do it again? Maybe. But there will be much more hesitation on my part before I do.
Well, that’s it. I am no longer an employee of Kingston Online Services; merely a customer. I can’t even begin to describe how much KOS has done for me. It was truely the greatest first job anyone could ask for, and KOS probably has one of the greatest groups of people anyone could ever work with. It was my privilege to work for KOS, and to work with everyone that I did.
Ryan.
Technical Support - Kingston Online Services
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There are only 10 types of people in the world:
those who understand binary and those who don't.
It’s Jeff Gordon day. It’s also the day that work is hosting a going away lunch for me. I’m also very busy.
I’ve had a busy week. Between covering some people’s shifts, working from home, a meeting at FCT, and research into a project for FCT I haven’t found much time to update. Sure, it only takes a minute. Go bug CubicRyan for not updating.
My weekend is crazy busy, but with fun events. Poker was tonight, tomorrow I go to Ottawa, then return to my Grandma’s for dinner. After dinner I either go to Mere’s to help her prepare for the Daytona 500 party or I visit with Evan who is in town for reading week. Sunday is, of course, the Daytona 500 followed, maybe, by dinner with Evan. I haven’t discussed that with him yet. And a crazy weekend leads into a crazy week.
Monday at FCT, then allergy study. Tuesday, working on stuff for KOS, then possibly allergy study. Wednesday at FCT, then dinner at Grandma Amodeo’s. Thursday, farewell lunch at KOS followed by work at KOS. Then, Friday will be my last day working as Technical Support. I plan on carrying out my personal belongings in an open box, like you see in the movies and on TV.
I’m moving the domain registration for ryanjallen.net, so you might notice some downtown. That’s assuming I have readers. I’ll probably be pretty quick about the switch so it might go unnoticed by you. Just don’t be scared that I’m dead if it doesn’t work.
What does the re-ordering of the “places” links on my weblog, an advert in the Kingston Whig Standard classifieds, and participation in a meeting with some St. Lawrence College students this past Wednesday have in common? How about one more hint: my Canada’s History, Day by Day calendar is now hanging in a new location. It means my e-mail address has changed!
Where my e-mail address used to be (rallen) at kos dot net, it will now be at fct dot ca. Both addresses are active now, and will be for a while. The official changeover date is Feb. 28th (well, sort of Mar. 1st).
Alright, alright. The bigger news is not the e-mail address change, but in fact the job change. The next two weeks will be my last at Kingston Online Services to be followed by starting at Fuel Cell Technologies. I believe my title will be Software Specialist, and I will be working on exciting software projects for the company. I am very excited.
It’s an exciting time of year. Is this because we’re only 12 days away from the Daytona 500? Or only 4 days away from the Budweiser Shootout? I don’t know. Well, I do know, but I won’t say yet.
THIS JUST IN. My mum decided to paint a step in my house and I stepped on it. My slipper has paint all over the bottom. This is a sad day for my slippers. I will need to get a new pair. I currently wear Garneau slippers.
I believe that a good gift always has a story. I’m looking for evidence to support or reject that claim. Please leave your comments on the subject.
And, finally, check out this humorous comic.
I did not buy ESPN NHL 2K5. Early Friday morning a co-worker of mine informed me that the multiplayer was not that great in the game. Seeing as the entire reason I was buying the game was for multiplayer I decided not to go ahead with my purchase. I think this was good resistance on my part, especially considering I wasn’t going to spend much money out-of-pocket.
KOS’s Belleville POP move went extremely well on Friday. We were out of the old POP after 30-45 minutes and completely setup at the new POP another 150 minutes later. That includes the time it took to co-ordinate with Bell Canada to light the DS3, switch the link to Kingston over, and move the pilot number over. In short, we beat our estimate by about 2 hours. Even more pleasing, though, was the response from customers. Very few people hadn’t received our notices about the outage and called in to find out what was wrong. We planned for the worst on that front, but the best happened. I wish all time-sensitive projects went like that!
Today was a day spent playing a lot of video games. I downloaded the first few episodes of Numb3rs, having not seen it but having seen commercials before and thinking “I would like to see that”. I also tried a slice of Joe Dough’s pizza for the first time. It was excellent, to say the least.
Tomorrow is the Superbowl. I do not like football. I do not enjoy the Superbowl. But I will enjoy the gathering hosted by the one and only Reg Kirkey. Zout will be there, and possibly Mr. Januszkiewicz, which will only make things more enjoyable. American Dad premiers after the Superbowl which I hope to catch in order to satisfy my Seth MacFarlane itch.
In closing I would like to follow up to ‘nee’s post regarding her student loan interest by saying that I only paid $84 in interest last year, but it was only for half the year and on, probably, much smaller loan amount. $2000, sorry ‘nee.
I have finished my work week as technical support. Tomorrow I am working in Belleville to assist with the relocation of KOS’s Belleville POP. This is exciting because I can do this job without speaking to customers. Chances are pretty high that I’ll have to talk to at least one customer, though. Things always seem to pop up.
Even if you discount my going to Belleville, I have a somewhat busy day tomorrow. I plan on visiting some retail shops, including FutureShop where I plan on buying ESPN NHL 2K5 for Xbox. I will be making this purchase with a gift certificate so my out of pocket expense will be little to none. I’m happy that I have been able to hold onto a gift certificate rather than just spend it because I have it. Assuming everything goes as planned tomorrow I will have Meredith to thank for my new video game. I look forward to playing large, multi-player games.
I’ve been looking into the possibility of creating an Internet-enabled alarm clock. While the needs might be different for this project than other Internet alarm clock projects, the projects seem to have commonalities. I found a white paper on the subject from 2000 titled “The Internet Alarm Clock–A Networked Appliance Case Study“. This research will definitely play a role in my project. I’ll keep you all posted.
That’s my excitement for now. Comment! Ask me something!
